April 3, 2020 and The Worst is Yet to Come
A couple of developments today I thought I'd punch out a quick one:
A Navy Commander was relieved of duty today, he disembarked the carrier USS Roosevelt to his sailors chanting his name. With positive cases onboard climbing, he sent a memo around the chain of command and was punished with being relieved of his command.
It is essentially a career ending penalty. Promotions after that are farfetched. However he's viewed as a hero for attempting to get action,
anything from his chain of command regarding the disposition of his sick crew and just as important the health of those not yet infected. You'll probably hear the name of Capt. Bret Crozier on Hannity soon.
President Trump advised Americans to brace for a helluva bad two weeks coming up. He also extended his own shutdown order til the end of April, another month. This is uncharted waters for a society and an economy so robust to immediately shut down to bare operating levels.
Everything in our daily cycle has been shut down except that which is related to essential services. Gas stations are open, grocery stores, restaurants for take-out only and most of these are curbside. My friends are weathering it well but I do fear for their personal assets and incomes and the effect of a collapse this will cause. In my household, we keep working and saying a silent prayer for the sick, the suffering and ourselves to be in the hands of God.
Finally, we have to use the assets we have at hand, as ordinary Americans. One asset is our brain. Left to idle it will atrophy. While on the other hand if it is exercised it will get stronger helping our ability to understand indepth and complex issues more readily.
One is the fatality rate of this epidemic.
Giving an inflated mortality rate is a sure way to generate hysteria and anguish which are emotional outpourings of fear and dispair. We should know by now that's what our media does! It never fails, and there are many, many examples of this the most famous being, "If it bleeds, it leads".
America is fascinated by guns, death and violence. If it weren't, we wouldn't see it on television. But too many of us stay too focused on what is being shown on TV. I think of Max Headroom from the 90's. America is a slave to the thoughts and sensations shown them on television. When the media participates in this cycle of violence, we pay the price, collectively as a society.
Lets get our mind around this mortality rate business:
With roughly 620k people being tested at the end of March in Italy, and 120k returning positive, Italy has had 15k deaths. This gives a fatality rate of 8%. Crucially, with a shortage of testing due to it's lengthy nature there are assumed to be people who aren't getting tested who would test positive making the total number of positive cases higher than can be reported.
By
contrast, the known number of deaths won't be subject to skewing
factors. While there may be more actual cases than known cases we know
the actual number of deaths. The fatality rate will skew lower when
more cases produce the same amount of deaths.
Maybe the worst nightmare of all, is the complete separation of loved
ones from a relative's death. There are special protocols keeping known
infected patients quarantined, then cremated or buried without the
family being present at any time. This is a crushing blow to a
devastated family I am sure. Again it is a normal precaution taken in
this extremely cautious time but reminds me of the overreaching social
regulations society somehow enacts on itself.
Stay safe, take the advice of professionals and cut out risky activities. Stay home, but protect yourself if/when you have to go out. If your job is too risky, stay home. If you have elderly in your home, the risk is greater. Mostly take care of your brain and stop the overload of death, gloom and doom. Walk outside and smell the Spring. Take stock of your life, here's a chance for that.
-katykarter